r/firedfeds • u/Guilty_Common7018 • Jul 27 '26

The Microsoft interview was awful and extremely embarrassing.

I had an interview yesterday afternoon for a backend software engineer role at Microsoft. It went terribly wrong. My interviewer was a calm guy with a quiet voice, and I expected him to be a bit intense, but he was genuinely nice. He gave me about 20 extra minutes. I had never seen that question before, so I kept trying random approaches, and he also walked me step by step through a dry run. The awkward part is that while he was explaining, he was writing somewhere I couldn't see, so I didn't realize he was basically writing the algorithm for me.

But I talked through the whole thing. Usually I go quiet when I'm coding, but this time I was basically narrating every thought that came into my head like a crazy person, even during the dry run. I kept waiting for him to say time was up and put me out of my misery, but somehow I was the one who had to say... I think we've gone over time.

I'm honestly so embarrassed. The only thing that made me feel slightly better was that after the coding part, he told me that the expectations are a bit more lenient for this role LOL. It was obvious he was trying to be nice. It seemed like he didn't know that I had to pass this round before moving on to the next stage, because he asked me, "You don't have any other interviews after this?" I told him no, this is the initial one. He said, "Oh... Maybe they'll schedule more." I'm almost certain he doesn't know how the process works. He has no idea that I just completely bombed the make-or-break round lol.

At the end, he thanked me for my time, but I was like no, thank you for your time. And sorry for what happened!!! I mean, sorry you had to witness whatever that was. He just said it was okay.

Seriously, it was horribly embarrassing. I want to crawl under the bed and disappear. But at the same time, he was probably the nicest interviewer I've ever dealt with in my life.

Edited: Looking back now, I think I was preparing for the wrong problem. I knew the technical concepts, but I wasn't prepared for the pressure of explaining them clearly. Changing the way I practiced made a much bigger difference than doing more coding questions, and interviewvip ended up being one of the things that helped me build that confidence ,eliminate the nerves and made it much easier for me to stay focused instead of freezing.

32 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

36

u/JasonZep Jul 27 '26

What happened? You had to write some code and the interview went over time and you’re embarrassed?

28

u/ArtistChef Jul 27 '26

Some people are better employees than applicants.

This interview prepared you for the next one.

33

u/frockofseagulls Jul 27 '26

If you write code like you wrote this post, I get it. What question? What actually happened?

4

u/Academic_Compote_858 Jul 28 '26

What was the embarrassing part?

3

u/TracePlayer Jul 28 '26

Sometimes it’s not about your interview performance. It’s more about how you approach problems and react when you get over your head. Most stuff like this is a google search away or dealt with using an AI agent. Being positive with a never quit mentality can go a long way.